(Chap. 45.)
No little speculation has been expended on this chapter and the reason why it is found here. Historically, it would follow chapter 36. It stands as a fact wholly apart from what precedes and follows. But I do not entertain a doubt that its divinely assigned place is where we find it in the Hebrew Bible, the order of which is of course adhered to in the authorized version.
It is plain that, as the preceding chapter 44 gives us the last direct account of the life of Jeremiah, chapter 45 furnishes the latest notice of his friend and scribe Baruch, though in point of fact the message here inserted was delivered some twenty years before the scene immediately before described in the land of Egypt.
But moral considerations enter also; and, as I think, of greater moment than any such motive for collocation. It is not merely at a season of danger from an incensed monarch that the mind of God conveyed by the prophet is of value; it may be increasingly needed when that pressure yields to a crowd of disasters, and a spurious calm succeeds blast after blast of evil. The question is, how Jehovah would have one who served Him to feel and act in a day of grief, and when His hand is still held out to execute summary judgment on the guilty people who dishonor His name entrusted to their keeping. This the prophet answers from God. May we have ears to hear what was said to Baruch!
“The word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch; thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.” (Ver. 1-3.) It is evident that Baruch was not only troubled on every side, but straitened, his way hedged up as he thought, abandoned to distress without measure or end, and destruction staring him in the face. He was disheartened and weary; he could find no rest for his soul. This should never be for the believer. Not only the Christian now can never be thus without sin and unbelief at work; but even of old it ought not to have been. For, as Isaiah declares not only the everlasting God, Jehovah, faints not nor is weary, but He gives power to the faint and increases strength to those who have no might. Thus, while nature's vigor fails utterly in the hour of trial, they that wait on Jehovah but change their strength, mount up as eagles, run without being weary and walk without being faint. How much more should we not be “weary pilgrims,” though we may well wait in sorrow though surely with a joyful hope in the Spirit!
There is always in such cases an inner forgetfulness of the Lord, a lack of communion with His mind and ways, an allowance of desires which spring from self whatever be the plausible cover they may wear in our eyes or before others.
Did Baruch simply and thoroughly vindicate Jehovah's ways with Israel? Did he in his heart sanctify the Lord God who had broken to pieces the people that He loved? This I gravely doubt. Otherwise he had not been so overwhelmed, but would surely have looked to Him and found an answer of repose in his spirit for the tears which He puts in His bottle. But as with us, so with His afflicted servant of old: God knew every thought and intent of the heart; and this in pitifulness, yet fidelity withal. Hence the word that follows: “Thus shalt thou say unto him, The Lord saith thus: Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.” Verses 4, 5.
This instruction is of great price to us who are partakers of a heavenly calling in the present ruined state of Christendom. Not that it was ever allowed to the Christian to seek great things for self or even for the church. True discipleship is inseparable from the cross, as our hoped for portion in the glory of God depends on the crucified One. And Christianity only comes in when God had tried man and found him wanting in every time and way and place; in the end of the world, as it is said (or rather consummation of the ages) when the proof was complete and manifest that the creature, as far as his own responsibility was concerned, was in no less ruin and misery than dishonor to God; and, in principle therefore, it could be said, “now is the judgment of this world.” Thereon the wisdom of God gave those He separated to Himself by Christ Jesus in grace now, and for heavenly glory in hope, a place not of the world—while in it and passing through it, not of the world as Christ is not. This, however, it becomes us even more peremptorily to hold fast, now that the outward framework of the Christian profession must be added to the ruins of man and of Israel; and we cannot but testify according to the word of our Lord His speedy appearing to judge the world in righteousness. We, it is true, have a blessed hope and await His coming to receive us to Himself. Baruch had but his life guaranteed to him, come what might, and wherever he might go. Our place as Christians is association with Christ—the cross, and the glory. May we never forget it, nor seek aught inconsistent with Him in both! But if we be ever so right in other respects, we fail if we do not act and feel suitably to the ways of God in a day when He has pronounced on evil and is about to judge. Lowliness especially becomes him whom grace has separated from that which is offensive to God; pride and hardness and self-seeking, always evil, become such an one least of all, and especially at such a time.